Susan Sarandon New Face of Revlon

Actress Susan Sarandon has joined the growing list of Hollywood celebrities featured in Revlon's ongoing ad campaign. Ad featuring Sarandon will debut Monday, January 24. Other celebrities having appeared in the campaign are Julianne Moore, Halle Barry, James King and Eva Mendes.

Commenting on the Revlon's desire to hire her, Sarandon said, "It was so unusual for a cosmetics company to hire somebody instead of fire somebody even younger than I am."

PR Professional Slams Clueless, Money-Hungry PR Firm

CooperKatz Public Relations VP Steve Rubel, writing on his weblog, Micro Persuasion, slams PR firm Delahaye for conducting a webinar designed to help PR professionals "deal with" weblogs which Delahaye calls "unfiltered channels of communication. According to Rubel, the seminar, entitled "Surviving Blogs: Monitoring and Analyzing Blogs to Protect and Direct Public Relations Strategy," treats weblogs as an enemy versus a phenomenon to be embraced. Calling blog content "conversations" which should be joined rather than managed, Rubel says Delahaye is just trying to sell its monitoring services and points out those running the seminar don't even have weblogs. Spending a bit of time on the Delahaye website brings back many strategic concepting session nightmares in which fancy marketing babble was developed instead of clear language to describe what a company does. Delahaye does media monitoring for clients. They should clearly state that on their website. This insanity exists in the ad agency world too. For years, agencies have used thousands of variations of "we're not an ad agency" language to try to differentiate themselves from other agencies. It's true the face of advertising is changing, as are the methods of commercial conversation, but if a company whose purpose is to create something for another company that is designed to be seen/heard/experienced/etc. by an individual with the purpose of getting that individual to buy something, they are an ad agency. And forget that "we're building a brand" babble. No one builds a brand for fun. A brand is built so people will pay money for a piece of that brand.

BMW Promotes New 3 Series With Mobile Campaign

BMW is launching a mobile-centered campaign to promote the launch of its new 3 series. The campaign begins with a mobile phone number that will be distributed from the automaker's website, at autoshows and at other promotional events. The number, 703-286-BMW3, returns a text message to the caller's phone providing a link to a mobile-enabled website containing information about the new vehicle and a gallery of past models. The campaign also provides a notification service which will send an additional text message when the car nears availability.

The campaign, created by Boomerang Mobile Media, was crafted to open dialog with people when they are in an automotive mindset. Boomerang Mobile Media Chairman Lou Schultz explained saying, "It's tapping a consumer when they're in a frame of mind where they want to know more.

If you're watching traditional advertising, and you see an ad and it calls for interaction, you might go to the Web, and you might not. But here's a way to create something different that the consumer can tie into."

Unfortunately, the campaign and the URL aren't friendly to non web-enabled phones. Granted, most phones are web enabled but our LG VX4400 isn't though we are definitely in the target audience for the 3 series.

iPod Threatens Broadcast Radio

While Emmis Chairman and CEO Jeff Smulyan thinks satellite won't be a threat to terrestrial radio, he does feel the iPod, and likely all other MP3 players, are a bigger threat. Writing on the Emmis website, Smulyan said, "Despite the buzz surrounding satellite radio, I believe iPods are a bigger threat, because you have a larger number of people with an alternative source of music. That said, I can remember when people were predicting the death of radio after 8-tracks came out. Despite continually evolving technologies, nothing has replaced the local information and local personalities we give our audiences. We know our communities, and we respond to their needs. Over the holiday season alone, Emmis radio stations raised $500,000 for charitable causes in their local communities - I don’t see how satellite radio can match that reach. Sirius and XM may or may not be viable businesses, but the reality is that two of Emmis' stations reach more people then the entire satellite industry, and those satellite subscribers still spend much of their listening time with terrestrial radio."

Either this is a bit of realistic common sense regarding the excitement over satellite radio or it will be looked back upon as another clueless comment from a company that doesn't get it. As they say, time will tell and with it, bring a brutal reality for some and a rosy future for others.

Expert Offers Online Sponsorship Advice

Riverside Marketing Strategies Principal Heidi Cohen, writing on ClickZ, offers some hints and guidelines to maximize the effectiveness of online sponsorships. From specific content to contests to blogs to interactive photo galleries, Cohen provides practical advice for those looking for online sponsorship ideas.

Air America Sounds Like Spam

An article on the website of The Church of Critical Thinking, which is not a religious organization, comments on left-wing Air America Radio's commercial breaks. While the article is a bit longer than our ADD-addled brain is use to, the writer, who likens Air America to his spam folder, does put forth a concise commentary on how the network's advertisers all seem to be a bunch of low-life, get-rich-quick, save-your-sole hucksters. While we don't listen to Air America, upon reading the lengthy dissertation, the situation doesn't sound all that different Howard Stern and his merry band of advertisers.

UPDATE: Air America co-founder Sheldon Drobny responds.

Dog Marks Territory, So Does Mazda

In a viral ad much less contentious than this week's Volkswagen Polo Suicide Bomber ad, comes this mildly humorous creation for the Mazda 3. It's well known dogs need to mark their territory but it's less well know that cars do too.

London's DMC planned, seeded and will track the campaign which was created by JWT Europe.

Bloggers Can Lend Success to Marketers

Writing in iMediaConnection, CooperKatz & Company's Steve Rubel says marketers can capitalize of the status of popular bloggers by signing them to endorsement deals, hiring them to write a custom-published blog, pay them to use product, use blog evangelists in a PR campaign or simply hire a blogger to go to work for you and garner the free press that goes along with it all.

There is a pecking order in the blogosphere but once you've pecked you way in, your in. You're known. Your opinion and commentary circulate faster than a ten ton marketing campaign. Marketers, ever in search of better ways to reach their target, would do well to explore the unique conversational nature of the blogosphere and explore opportunities to leverage it for success.

Targeting Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

A new study released by Deloitte's Media and Telecommunications division points to a future in which mass marketing shifts to micro targeting. While not surprising, the report speaks to the convergence of of media and the continual merging of electronic devices into one, through which all content will flow - likely the cell phone. Along with the merging of devices will be the transference off all media to digital form coupled with the rise in consumer conversation afforded by weblogs and wikis.

This nichification of content will be fast followed by the nichification of advertising.

Volkwagen Denies Responsibility For Suicide Bomber Ad

While no company would ever own up to a viral clip such as this week's Suicide Bomber viral ad for the Volkwagen Polo, VW, is predictably, disavowing any knowledge of the ad. Revolution Magazine reports the ad was created by a company called Lee and Dan, creators of the Ford SportKa StreetKa and other viral ads.

Sounding as if lying through his teeth, Lee and Dan's Dan said, "The ad got out accidentally and has spread like wildfire. It wasn't meant for public consumption. We think the spot reflects what people see in the news everyday, and in this instance the car is the hero that protects innocent people from someone with very bad intentions. We're sorry if the ad has caused any offence." No company is going to spend marketing dollars on anything just to let it sit in the closet. This was very much a planned campaign.

Both Volkswagen and its agency, DDB, claim they had nothing to do with the creation of the spot. Clearly someone is lying. Very likely, someone deep inside the bowels of Volkswagen and DDB gave the green light for this. In fact, it's probably a case of plausible deniability.

Some renegade account exec or brand manager told a few people to go do some cool viral thing but, at the same time, to keep quiet about it. In fact, there's probably an annual budget set aside at the beginning of each year for this sort of thing and those using the budget are simply told to do with it what they choose on a timeline of their choosing.

In the world of viral and word-of-mouth advertising the debate will continue to center on transparency. Some practitioners believe companies should be upfront and acknowledge all involvement with campaigns. Others feel success hinges on gray area or planned denial as is the case in the Volkswagen Polo situation. While it may not be the most successful, at the end of the day, honesty is the best policy.